Oliver RistBuffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL_R1)The Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL/R1) is a functioning NAS box, but it's ill-suited to serving multimedia in the home, and it lacks the features and reliability needed for SMB file serving. This is a device that could use additional software engineering.

The Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL/R1) is a functioning NAS box, but it's ill-suited to serving multimedia in the home, and it lacks the features and reliability needed for SMB file serving. This is a device that could use additional software engineering.

Dual drives began showing up near the end of 2007, and we'll be seeing a lot more of them throughout 2008. The idea is to offer a lower-cost and simplified alternative to three- and four-drive RAID 5 arrays while still maintaining some semblance of hardware redundancy via RAID 1. It's a sound enough concept for home users; but the Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL/R1) NAS falls a bit short on features, performance, and ease of use.

The LinkStation Pro Duo looks much like its close cousin, the LinkStation Pro: The case is a good-looking black box about the size of a toaster, with a front-mounted square LED screen for displaying status. The back of the box is similarly straightforward: You'll find a power connector and switch, a reset button, a single USB port, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack. Like the Apple Time Capsule, the LinkStation Pro Duo integrates the power supply into the box, so the power cord isn't burdened with an added brick.

In an attempt at making the product green, Buffalo has added automatic power management smartssort of. Just as with the master control outlets on the new APC Back-UPS ES750, the NAS box knows when the PC running its NAS Navigator software goes to sleep or is shut down. Losing the connection with NAS Navigator puts the LinkStation Pro Duo to sleep, and reviving the NAS Navigator PC wakes up the NAS hardware. That's a nice idea, but it works only if the Pro Duo is in a home network with just one PC. If more than one PC is accessing it, the Pro Duo automatically disables this feature. Alternatively, you can sync the Pro Duo with a UPS, but this merely provides an orderly shutdown in case of power failure.

Sadly, that's not all that's wrong with this device. First, I was unable to figure out if it's actually capable of acting as a print server, which really ought to be a basic feature in these home-networkoriented products. The management interface has no specific support for a printer. When I plugged an HP OfficeJet J5780 into its USB port, the Pro Duo's software did correctly identify the printerbut only in the management interface. Scanning for the printer from a connected client proved futile whether I did it from the Vista Add Printer wizard or by clicking on the Pro Duo's network icon and opening its Printer folder.

Worse, while it can handle an external USB hard drive, it can't cope with more than one if, say, you plug in a USB hub. In fact, it can't identify a USB hub at all. More bad news: It doesn't recognize many USB hard drives. I plugged in a couple of flash thumb drives, including a Kensington, and got bubkes. Out of three drives I tried, only my 80GB Maxtor OneTouch was recognized. So according to my testing, this device has trouble recognizing certain USB devices and can't recognize a USB hub, which means you're relegated to a single USB device. That's a bit of a blow, considering that the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo has three USB ports with no device recognition problems (any of which can be expanded with a hub) and also offers easy printer sharing. Buffalo has some serious work to do on its USB firmware.Next: The Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo: Setup

Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL_R1)

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Bottom Line: The Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL/R1) is a functioning NAS box, but it's ill-suited to serving multimedia in the home, and it lacks the features and reliability needed for SMB file serving. This is a device that could use additional software engineering.

Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo (LS-WTGL_R1)

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